Tim Boucher

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Tag: myth

Quoting Tumburu Wikipedia

By

On 24 September 2024

In Other

I love this:

A South Indian legend records that Tumburu once performed severe austerities and pleased Shiva. Tumburu asked Shiva to grant him a horse-face, immortality, liberty to travel the universe, skill in music and singing, and the ability to reside with and serve Shiva. Shiva blessed him and granted the boons that he sought.[5]

I feel like I need to find out why he wanted to have a horse face?

Perplexity put together a not bad reply to this, citing sources that I haven’t checked, and probably won’t:

According to Indian mythology, Tumburu asked Shiva for a horse face for the following reasons:

  1. As a result of severe austerities: Tumburu performed intense penance to please Lord Shiva. After successfully gaining Shiva’s favor through his devotion and austerities, Tumburu was granted the opportunity to ask for boons.
  2. To obtain a unique appearance: By requesting a horse face, Tumburu sought to distinguish himself with a distinctive and memorable appearance. This unusual feature would set him apart from other celestial beings and musicians.
  3. To gain special powers: In some interpretations, the horse face may have been believed to grant Tumburu enhanced musical abilities or other mystical powers associated with his role as a divine musician.
  4. As a sign of devotion: Asking for such an unusual boon could be seen as a demonstration of Tumburu’s complete surrender and devotion to Lord Shiva, showing that he valued Shiva’s blessing over conventional beauty.
  5. For immortality: Along with the horse face, Tumburu also asked Shiva to grant him immortality. The horse face may have been seen as a small price to pay for the gift of eternal life.

It’s worth noting that while the horse face is a defining characteristic of Tumburu in many accounts, the exact reasoning behind this specific request is not always explicitly stated in the mythological texts. The horse face has become an integral part of Tumburu’s iconography, often depicted in Indian visual art and described in various legends related to this celestial musician.

Reading that with my mythical goggles on, the part about demonstrating complete devotion makes a lot of sense, if you think of Tumburu offering himself basically to be the mount of Shiva, and to be driven by Shiva’s will for all eternity, etc. “Cool story, bro.”

Narrative Warfare & The Hyperreal, Part 16

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On 6 June 2021

In Other

Have been thinking a great deal on the similarities between folklore and conspiracy theories, as being grassroots stories we tell ourselves and one another to make sense of the world. I maintain that folklore, conspiracy theories, and what we call “disinformation” etc. are all part & parcel of the same phenomenon: the hyperreal, where the blending of fact & fiction are seamless and more or less indistinguishable.

Have also been reading Corkery’s excellent 1924 classic, “Hidden Ireland,” which has lead me to fill in a lot of gaps around my knowledge of Irish history, such as the Flight of the Earls, the Plantation of Ulster, the Tudor Conquest of Ireland, the decline of the Bardic Schools, and so on. There’s a story in Irish history which was used for centuries to establish or challenge the legitimacy of rulers, that of the founding of Ireland by the quasi-mythical Milesians.

From the Wikipedia:

Professor Dáithí Ó hÓgain writes that the “account of how the sons of Míl took Ireland was a literary fabrication, but it was accepted as conventional history by poets and scholars down until the 19th century”.[3] For centuries, the legend was used in Ireland to win and secure dynastic and political legitimacy. For example, in his Two bokes of the histories of Ireland (1571), Edmund Campion tried to use the myth to establish an ancient right of the British monarch to rule Ireland. […]

Geoffrey Keating‘s Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (written c.1634) used the myth to promote the legitimacy of the Stuart claim to royal authority in Ireland (related to the origin of the Lia Fáil), demonstrating that Charles I was descended, through Brian Boru, Éber and Galamh, from Noah and, ultimately, from Adam.

Whether we call this narrative warfare or just another example of the hyperreal, the end result is the same: people using stories – and changing stories – to justify their own position or to attack the position of another. It all sounds eerily familiar, and it’s clear how deeply penetrating these types of stories can be as guiding myths in cultures.

Robert Graves: Analeptic Thought

By

On 16 September 2018

In Intuition, Reference, Research

“Graves derived some of his ideas from poetic inspiration and a process of “analeptic thought”, which is a term he used for throwing one’s mind back in time and receiving impressions. ”

[…]

“While Graves made the association between Goddesses and the moon appear “natural”, it was not so to the Celts or some other ancient peoples.[14] In response to critics, Graves accused literary scholars of being psychologically incapable of interpreting myth…”

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